Metaphorical use of Mandarin

Between the time when you wake up in the morning and fall asleep in the evening, you might
feel down if you are under a lot of pressure, or be high in spirits if you feel on top of a
situation. Such spatial metaphors are present in most languages and this study focuses on how
Mandarin verb complements indicating spatial direction, so-called directional verb
complements, are used metaphorically.

Spatial metaphors are found in various parts of the Chinese language and directional verb
complements are part of a larger whole. The purpose of this study is to relate the various
complements and their metaphors to one another, provide a system in which the metaphors of
directional complements fit into a larger context within the Mandarin language, and examine
similar structures in other languages.

I would like to thank the following people: Thesis advisor Halvor Eifring for constructive
criticism and moral as well as academic support, assistant thesis advisor Wang Qi for her
patience and helpful insight, professor Gao Shunquan at Fudan University for helpful
discussions and providing material, Li Xiaochan for helpful discussions and patience in
answering all my questions, Lina Liu for helpful insight, Adrienne Wong for advice, support
and proofreading the darn thing, my family and friends for their love and support. I get by
with a little help from my friends.

That said, shortcomings (of which there are many, I’m sure) must be credited to yours truly. I
must admit to underestimating the time needed to find material on the subject and also the
seeming lack of said material. Of books consulted only a small fraction were deemed useful
as most of them either mentioned the specific subject very briefly or were duplications of
other works. However, it is not entirely unlikely that this opinion is a result of
incomprehensive research rather than lack of relevant material.

The feeling of almost seeing the whole picture has been present through most of this study
and in combination with unforeseen events adding to an already rough outline of a schedule, it
has left me with a sneaking suspicion that I have missed something. On the other hand, from
what I’ve learned from my fellow students I would in all likeliness be considered a freak of
nature if I did not have such a feeling near the end of such a process. And so, I hope that
whatever clues I might have missed are not of vital importance and that I will be able to fill in
the gaps in the future as my understanding of this subject (hopefully) improves in time
through futher studies.

Verb complements are a very common feature of the Chinese language. The subgroup that
indicates spatial direction of motion, most often called directional verb complements, is also
commonly used in a figurative sense. Students of Mandarin as a foreign language are often
presented with the figurative use of directional complements in a matter-of-fact way, without
much consideration for how and why. The purpose of this study is to relate the various
complements and their metaphors to one another, provide a system in which the metaphors of
directional complements fit into a larger context within the Mandarin language, and examine
similar structures in other languages.

One important piece of the puzzle falls into place once we realise that the simple metaphors
produced by the various directional complements are part of a larger cognitive system. For
instance, the fact that 下去 (xiaqu, down-away) following a verb means “to continue (the
action of the verb)” becomes much more interesting when we realise that it is part of the
larger underlying concept that, in Chinese, time moves downward. This concept is not only
present as verb complements, but in various other parts of the language. E.g. 下次 (xiaci, lit.
down occurrence) means “next time”, and 下来 (xialai, lit. down come) used as a verb after a
time word (such as “year”, “semester”, etc.) indicates the end of a period. Furthermore, in the
case of many of these concepts, they extend their meaning in the opposite “direction”. E.g. as
下次 means “next time”, 上次 (shangci, lit. up occurrence) means “last time”. We will in this
study argue that all metaphors produced by directional verb complements are parts of a larger
underlying metaphorical concept.

Mandarin is far from the only language to have spatial metaphors; indeed, using spatial
metaphors to express more abstract concepts, like time, is rather common across languages.
Whether people are looking forward to a brighter tomorrow, proposing theories ahead of their
time, or falling behind schedule, they rely on terms from the domain of space to talk about

7
time.1 In this way, Mandarin is not exceptional. On the contrary, we will argue that there is a
certain universality not only in spatial metaphors, but also in the underlying metaphorical
concepts. However, it is important to note the difference between directional metaphors and
other ways of expressing direction of spatial displacement in other languages. This will be
discussed further in section 7.1.

Since we’re dealing with metaphor, we touch upon an interesting related discussion; that of
metaphor in Chinese poetry. Both Owen(1985) and Yu(1987) argue that Chinese poetry does
not make use of metaphor, as understood by Western readers (“The poet is a gull between
Heaven and Earth”2), but only simile (“It seemed to me I was like a gull between Heaven and
Earth”3).4 The important difference is that the first sentence uses metaphor to make a
statement that is not literally true (the poet is not really a gull), while the simile in the second
is literally true (the poet really felt like he was a gull). The same is true for both parts of
correlative sentences (such as “the poet feels light and free, a gull is flying over the sea”),
which are also found in Chinese poetry.
We will argue that metaphorical use of directional verb complements is indeed metaphorical
and on that basis claim that any lack of metaphors in Chinese poetry is not based on a general
cognitive difference between Chinese and Western authors, but on a particular cultural
preference that is first of all present in a poetic context, and not in the cognitive functions in
everyday life.

The above can be summed up in the following hypotheses:
a) Mandarin directional verb complements used metaphorically are instances of larger
underlying cognitive concepts or general cognitive metaphors. These underlying metaphors
are also found in other parts of the language.
b) Both the instances and the underlying metaphors in Mandarin are in many ways the same
as similar concepts found in other languages. Thus, Mandarin is less exotic in this aspect than
on the poetic level (cf. Li, Owen). The directional constructions themselves bear both
similarities and differences to equivalent aspects in other languages.
1
Lera Boroditsky: “Do English and Mandarin speakers Think Differently About Time?”
http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/proceedings/2008/pdfs/p427.pdf
2
Owen(1985:15)
3
Owen(1985:15)
4
Owen(1985:15,26,34,56-57), Yu(1987:36-27,199-201)
8
c) The figurative use of Mandarin directional verb complements is metaphorical in nature,
suggesting that any lack of metaphors in Chinese poetry, as discussed by Li and Owen, does
not have to do with a lack of metaphors in the Chinese language per se, but is rather a result of
poetic/cultural preference.

9
6 An introduction to verb complements
A verb complement is a complementary element that follows and modifies the verb. Verb
complements are important in Mandarin, as they are widely used in both speech and writing.

Terminology as well as classification may vary between different books. For instance,
Chao(1968) operates with directional verb complements as a subgroup of resultative verb
compounds. In this thesis, for all practical purposes verb complements can be divided into the
following three main categories:

This study will mainly concern itself with directional verb complements and will touch upon
potential verb complements. Resultative complements are of little relevance and will be
discussed only briefly.

(Verb complements such as [verb+得+adjective phrase/sentence/verb phrase] are practically
absent in the present study and will therefore not be discussed).

结果补语,
结果补语 jieguo buyu)
6.1 Resultative verb complements (结果补语

Semantically speaking, resultative verb complements provide a result of the action or process
indicated by the verb preceding it. The compound always consists of two elements, the main
verb and its resultative complement. The “result” described by the second element can be of
various kinds and is not necessarily easily discerned as a result as such, but rather as the
manner in which the action or process indicated by the first element is performed5:

5
Li/Thompson(1981:54-55)
10
As demonstrated in the examples above, the Mandarin resultative verb complement is often
translated into English as an adverb, e.g. write clearly, used up, turn off, but it can also simply
take the form of a verb, e.g. he broke the teacup.

6.2 趋向补语,
趋向补语 quxiang buyu)
Directional verb complements (趋向补语

A directional verb complement describes the direction of the displacement caused by the
preceding verb. The main verb is a so-called displacement verb and its directional
complement consists of one of two types of directional verbs or a combination of the two. The
two types of directional verbs may also be used on their own without the displacement verb,
in which case the first directional verb functions as the main verb and not a complement.

The directional complements to verbs in group a. describe the direction of the subject (since
these verbs are more or less intransitive), while the directional complements to verbs in group
b. describe the direction of the so-called logical object.

As mentioned above, there are two types of directional verbs that can function as a directional
complement, either alone or in combination with the other. The first type of directional verbs
(V2) is comprised of the following eight verbs, and they each have a directional meaning
when it functions as a verb complement and a verbal meaning when it occurs as an
independent verb, below displayed “[directional meaning] / [verbal meaning]”:
上 shang “up / ascend”, 下 xia “down / descend”, 进 jin “in / enter”, 出 chu “out / exit”,
起 qi “up / rise”, 回 hui “back / return”, 过 guo “over / cross”, 开 kai “apart, away / open”.
As directional complements these verbs describe direction of displacement in relation to the
object in question.

11
The second type of directional verbs (V3) describes direction of displacement in relation to the
speaker and consists of the following two verbs: 来 lai “come, (toward the speaker)” and 去
qu “go, (away from the speaker)”.

Compound directional verb complements are composed of a type 2 directional verb followed
by a type 3 directional verb (V2+V3). This means there are 16 (8 times 2) possible
combinations, but *起去 and *开去 are considered ungrammatical6, so in practice there are 14
compound directional verb complements. Used as verb complements V2+V3 are always
pronounced in the neutral tone.

The matter of object placement is not of much relevance to the present study, other than
recognise that there are variations, so we will list them only briefly below:
V1 + V2: In expressions like this, without V3, the object is required and is inserted after the
complement.
V1 + V3: The direct object is inserted after V3.
V2 + V3 (V2 functions as the main verb): If there is a place object, such as 楼 lou “building,
floor” or 山 shan “mountain”, in the sentence, it must be inserted in between V2 and V3. (And
it makes little sense with non-place objects).
V1 + V2 + V3 (compound directional complement): Placing the object in a sentence featuring
a compound directional complement may seem a bit complicated. An object not indicating a
place can be placed after V1 or V3. It can be placed after V2 only if V3 = 来 lai. However, if V3
= 去, the directional complement may not be split.

If the object in the sentence indicates a place, e.g. 学校 xuexiao “school” or 北京 Beijing, it
must be placed between V2 and V3, regardless of V3 being 来 lai or 去 qu7. For more
information and examples, see for instance Li/Thompson(1981:58-66).

A potential verb complement indicates whether or not the “goal” indicated by the preceding
verb is obtainable. The compound consists of three parts: the main verb, its resultative or
directional complement and one of two possible infixes, 得 de (“obtain” goal obtainable)
or 不 bu (“not” goal not obtainable), in between. Because of this structure, some authors,
like Li/Thompson, choose to discuss potential verb complements as a subgroup or form of
resultative verb complements.
From resultative verb compounds:
2) 我 听 -不 - 懂 你 说 -的 - 话
wo ting - bu - dong ni shuo - de - hua
I listen not understand you say ASC words
I can’t understand what you are saying (by listening).
Or: I am unable to understand what you are saying (by listening).

13
Although the English translations of the above examples make use of “can” and “can’t”, the
meaning of 得 and 不 can perhaps be better conveyed by “achievable” and “unachievable”
respectively8.

The potential form is available to all resultative verb compounds from free parts, as long as it
makes sense. “Free parts” means compounds that are not solid, which implies that no infix
can be inserted, such as in 改善.9

7 About conceptual metaphors

Linguistic evidence shows that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical in nature. In
cognitive linguistics a conceptual metaphor (or cognitive metaphor) refers to the
understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, e.g. understanding
quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "prices are rising"). A conceptual domain can be any
coherent organization of human experience. The essence of metaphor is understanding and
experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another based on a perceived analogy.

An example of a conceptual metaphor is “argument is war”10. This metaphor is reflected in
our everyday language by a variety of expressions, for instance:

- Your claims are indefensible.
- He attacked every weak point in my argument.
- His criticisms were right on target.
- I demolished his argument.
- If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.
- He shot down all of my arguments.

Lakoff/Johnson(2003) claims that metaphor is not just a matter of language, but that human
thought processes are largely metaphorical; that the human conceptual system is

8
Li/Thompson(1981:56-57)
9
Chao (1968:452)
10
From Lakoff/Johnson(2003)
14
metaphorically structured and defined. We don’t just talk about arguments in terms of war,
but many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war;
argument is partially structured, understood, performed, and talked about in terms of war. The
metaphor is not merely in the words we use; it is in our concept of an argument. And because
the metaphorical concept is systematic, the language we use to talk about that aspect of the
concept is systematic.11

A metaphor such as “argument is war” is called a structural metaphor; a case where one
concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another. Lakoff/Johnson(2003) speaks of
another kind of metaphorical concept, one that does not structure one concept in terms of
another but instead organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another. These
are called orientational metaphors, since most of them have to do with spatial orientation: up-
down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral. These spatial orientations
arise from the fact that we have bodies of the sort we have and that they function as they do in
our physical environment. Orientational metaphors give a concept a spatial orientation. Here
are some examples from the English language:

“conscious is up; unconscious is down”
Wake up. He fell asleep. He dropped off to sleep. He’s under hypnosis. He sank into a coma.

“having control of force is up; being subject to control or force is down”
I have control over him. I’m on top of the situation. He’s at the height of his power. He’s in
the high command. His power rose. He is under my control. He fell from power. His power is
on the decline.12

The list goes on and all of these orientational metaphors seem to have a logical connection to
human experience of the physical world.

11
Lakoff/Johnson(2003:3-13)
12
Lakoff/Johnson(2003:14-17)
15
One spatial metaphor that appears across languages and can be said to be universal is the use
of spatial terms to talk about time. Whether people are looking forward to a brighter
tomorrow, proposing theories ahead of their time, or falling behind schedule, they rely on
terms from the domain of space to talk about time. Some aspects of time can be experienced
in the physical world, e.g. that each moment in time only happens once, that we can never go
back, and that many aspects of our experience are not permanent (e.g. faculty meetings are
not everlasting, but rather begin and end at certain times). In other words, our experience
dictates that time is a phenomenon in which we experience continuous unidirectional change
that may be marked by appearance and disappearance of objects and events and these aspects
of conceptual time appear to be universal across cultures and languages. In order to capture
the sequential order of events, time is generally conceived as a one-dimensional, directional
entity. Across languages, the spatial terms imported to talk about time are also one-
dimensional, directional terms such as ahead/behind or up/down rather than multidimensional
or symmetric terms such as narrow/wide or left/right. 13

However, there are many aspects of our concept of time that are not observable in the world,
e.g. in what direction does time move, does time move past us, or do we move through it, etc.
Aspects like these, which are not constrained by our physical experience with time, are free to
vary across languages and our conceptions of them may be shaped by the way we choose to
talk about them.14 For example, it has been found that Aymara, a language spoken by the
Aymara people of the Andes, arranges time so that the past is in front of them and the future
is behind them.15 Other studies have found that cultuo-linguistic factors like writing direction
affect how peoples spatialise time, with Hebrew and Arabic speakers for example tending to
arrange time from right to left rather than left to right as English speakers do.16 And speakers
of Kuuk Thaayorre, an Australian Aboriginal language that relies primarily on absolute
frames of reference for talking about space, have apparently been found to lay out time from
East to West, rather than from left to right for English speakers.17

13
Clark, 1973; Traugott, 1978; Lehrer, 1990 (quoted from Boroditsky, 2008)
14
Boroditsky(2008)
15
Nunez & Sweetser, 2006 (quoted from Boroditsky, 2008)
16
Tversky et al, 1991; Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2007 (quoted from Boroditsky, 2008)
17
Boroditsky & Gaby, 2006 (quoted from Boroditsky, 2008)
16
One apparent exception from the universality of spatial terms to talk about time that deserves
a mention is the Hopi Indians, according to Benjamin Lee Whorf. He claimed that the Hopi
language contains “no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions that refer
directly to what we call ‘time’, or to past, present, or future, or to enduring or lasting, or to
motion as kinematic rather than dynamic (…), or that even refer to space in such a way as to
exclude that element of extension or existence that we call ‘time’, and so by implication leave
a residue that could be referred to as ‘time’. Hence, the Hopi language contains no reference
to ‘time’, either explicit or implicit.”18

We can see that this “future is behind and coming; past is in front and going (away)”19 is
similar to English speakers’ horizontal terms about time, but as illustrated by the following
terms, we see that also frequently in Mandarin is “past is up; future is down”, in other words
time in vertical terms:

18
Whorf(1967:57-58). See also Thompson(1950:158-161)
19
There are exceptions to this metaphor, as in 前途 qiantu “future”, which literally means front-route.

17
English and Mandarin both use horizontal and vertical spatial metaphors to talk about time,
but in English front/back terms are predominant. Front/back terms are common in Mandarin
as well, but Mandarin speakers also systematically use vertical metaphors to talk about time.
Although in English vertical spatial terms can also be used to talk about time (e.g. “hand
down knowledge from generation to generation” or “the meeting was coming up”), these uses
are not nearly as common or systematic as in the use of 上 (shang, up) and 下 (xia, down) in
Mandarin. Moreover, studies, some of which have considered various cultural factors (like
writing direction, etc.), have shown that native Mandarin speakers also think about time
vertically more often than English speakers do. 20

In an attempt to logically relate English speakers’ vertical terms about time,
Lakoff/Johnson(2003) says that the physical basis for “foreseeable future events are up (and
ahead)” (e.g. All up coming events are listed in the paper. What’s coming up this week? I’m
afraid of what’s up ahead of us. What’s up?), is that our eyes look in the direction which we
typically move (ahead, forward). As an object approaches a person (or the person approaches
the object), the object appears larger. Since the ground is perceived as being fixed, the top of
the object appears to be moving upward in the person’s field of vision.21

As we can see, this is contrary to the way Mandarin speakers view time vertically, with future
being down – not up. Still, the Chinese view can also be explained from experience of the
physical world: Most objects in everyday life is being pulled down by gravitational forces. If
you drop a ball on the top of a hill it will roll down towards the foot of the hill as time passes.

As mentioned above, there are many factors to be considered if one wants to determine why
speakers of a given language use spatial metaphors the way they do and it is outside the scope
of this thesis to provide an in-depth analysis of such cultural or social factors. In the following,
any hints about how the metaphorical concepts might have arisen from physical and cultural
experience are meant to be suggestive and plausible, not definitive. What we do want to look
into, however, is whether or not a given spatial metaphor is internally consistent and/or can be
related to a more generic metaphor or view, such as time in the examples above.

As discussed in section 6.2, the basic function of a directional verb complement is to describe
the direction of the displacement caused by the preceding verb. In all contexts where a
directional complement does not indicate direction, the directional complement can be
understood as having an extended meaning. In accordance with the above-mentioned theory,
this extended meaning will in the following be called metaphorical meaning.

There can be little doubt that Mandarin directional verb complements can be used as
orientational/spatial metaphors. As discussed above Mandarin is far from the only language to
have spatial metaphors; indeed, using spatial metaphors to express more abstract concepts,
like time, seems to be more or less universal across languages. In Mandarin these spatial
metaphors are often expressed through directional complements. In English, as in the
examples above, directional metaphors are typically formed by adverbs (as in “looking
forward to something”) or adjectives (as in “an upcoming event”).

Mandarin, like English, is a so-called satellite-framed language, which among other things
means that the motion verb, in addition to expressing motion, typically also expresses manner
or cause22:
The bottle floated out of the cave. (Manner)
The napkin blew off the table. (Cause)
In Mandarin the “the bottle floated out of the cave” would be expressed as follows:
瓶子 从 山洞 漂 出 来
pingzi cong shandong piao chu lai
bottle from cave float exit come

出 corresponds in function to the English adverb out, while 来 marks movement in the
direction of the speaker. The latter has no immediate equivalent in English.

22
Eifring/Theil(2006:chapter 6)
19
In so-called verb-framed languages like Spanish, the motion verb typically does not convey
information about manner or cause, but expresses instead the path of motion: direction, arrival,
departure, traversing and many others23:

La botella salió de la cueva. (Departure)
'The bottle moved out from the cave.'

Spatial metaphors in Mandarin are not limited to directional complements, but are also
present in other parts of the language, as is apparent from the time related words in the
examples above. As we will see in the following chapters, these other words and expressions
largely conform with the more general ideas/metaphors, like “time moves downwards”. For
example, as the earlier-mentioned 下次 (xia ci, next time/lit. “down occurance”) indicates that
the “direction” of time in Mandarin is down, so does some directional verb complements
containing 下 (xia, down). In other words, we will see that the general spatial metaphors
largely dictates how more specific directional metaphors are used and behave; that they form
a system in which directional verb complements (and other parts of the language) are used to
express the larger conceptual metaphors, as illustrated by the example below:

“Time moves downwards” (general conceptual metaphor):
下次 next time | down occurance
下来 (used as a verb after time word) come to an end | down-come
verb + 下去 continue (“verbing”) | hand down down-come

A consequence of these larger conceptual metaphors is that certain directional complements
are used with certain verbs to express certain meanings. For example, in Mandarin as in

23
Eifring/Theil(2006:chapter 6): Verb-framed languages also have a number of verbs that include information
about manner, such as words for 'run', 'walk', 'fly' and so on. Even when they have such manner verbs, however,
they tend to prefer path verbs.
Satellite-framed languages usually also express path, only it is not expressed in the verb, but in what is called the
satellite to the verb, in English usually an adverb like out, in Chinese usually a non-main verb like chu (=exit).
20
English, “light is up; darkness is down” and in the same way as English speakers would say
“the candle lit up the room” and not *“lit down the room”, a verb such as 亮 (liang, light) is
used together with 起来 (qilai, up-come) and not 下来/下去 in the meaning “to light up
(something)”.

In English the main verb may or may not be part of the spatial metaphor, e.g. falling behind
schedule (verb is metaphorical), theories proposed ahead of their time (verb is not
metaphorical). An aspect that needs to be considered is to what extent the different parts of a
compound directional compound contribute to the metaphorical meaning in Mandarin. Is the
meaning of V2+V3 (来/去) the product of the individual metaphorical meanings of V2 and V3
(e.g. is a given metaphorical meaning of 上来 a result of a combination of the individual
metaphorical meanings of 上 and 来), is V2+V3 a unit without a clear connection to the
individual metaphorical properties of V2 and V3 (e.g. is a given metaphorical use of 上来
unrelated to the individual metaphorical meanings of 上 and 来), or does the main verb in
itself need to be considered part of the metaphor (as in the above example: “falling behind
schedule”)? The latter is typically the least interesting case in this study, since we want to
examine how the directional complements themselves form metaphors. What is more
interesting is what part of the compound directional complements is dominant in making up
metaphorical meanings; whether they can be considered fixed compounds or compounds
where the different parts (V2 and 来/去) play distinct roles. The roles of the separate elements,
V2 and V3, will be discussed as they are encountered in the text.

8 Metaphorical use of compound directional complements

Of the combinations of compound directional complements touched upon in section 6.2 we
will refrain from discussing the controversial 起去 and 开去 since it’s debated whether they
are even part of the language. Also, as 开 doesn’t really have an orientational meaning per se,
开来 will not be discussed in this section. This leaves 13 combinations of compound
directional complements:
上来/上去 下来/下去 进来/进去 出来/出去 过来/过去 回来/回去 起来

21
All of these combinations have metaphorical meanings to some extent. 进来, 回来 and 回去
have no particular extended meanings and will be adressed together below. The rest will be
discussed separately.

Directional complements can, of course, be used as potential verb complements and their
metaphorical meaning in their potential form will be mentioned in cases where they differ
from their metaphorical meanings as directional verb complements.

In the following we will go systematically through the different compounds and discuss their
metaphorical properties. A concern has been how to arrange and present the material. Since
we want to relate the various directional complements to more general conceptual metaphors,
it would also have made sense to devide the following section into general conceptual
metaphors and list the various directional complements under these headlines. However, we
have decided to discuss each directional verb complement separately and try to relate them to
the general underlying concepts as we believe it will be more comprehensible and easier to
follow. In addition, listing the underlying metaphors would suggest that the ones encountered
in this study comprise a complete list, which they don’t; they are a means of illustrating the
bigger picture.

8.1 进来,
进来 回来 and 回去

As mentioned above, 进来 (jinlai), 回来 (huilai) and 回去 (huiqu) have no particular
metaphorical meaning and are not in themselves productive as metaphors. There are, however,
examples of expressions where they are used where they may be concidered metaphorical. A
few are listed below.
6)
我 打算 把 他们 出售 的 股票 全部 吃 进来。
wo dasuan ba tamen chushou de gupiao quanbu chi jin-lai
I plan BA they out-sell ASC stocks complete eat in-come
I plan to completely eat (=buy) the stocks they are laying out for sale.
(Gao, personal communication)

22
In this example the whole expression, 吃进来 (chi jin-lai, eat in-come), must be regarded
metaphorically, as it is obvious that “I” is not really interested in actually eating stocks.
However, the directional complement normally used with 吃 (chi) where it is meant literally
is 下去 (xiaqu, down-away). Sometimes 进去 may be used, but it is far more uncommon and
进来 is very rare. In an article, “The potential markers in Mandarin” by John H-T. Lu24, it is
stated that 下去 is the only compound directional complement that can be used with 吃. The
use of 进来 (jinlai, in-come) in this sentence is to emphasise that it is “I”, the speaker, who is
doing the “eating” of stocks, and 进来 can thus be regarded metaphorically in this sentence, at
least as a part of a verbal expression.

下来 (xialai, down-come) can also be used in the above sentence, meaning more or less the
same as 进来, but 下去 and 进去 cannot be used, as they would indicate actual eating.25

As in the previous example, the verb must be considered a metaphor; there is little debate
whether or not a life is a physical object that can be picked up. Since it is not actually picked
up, talking about what direction in which it is picked up makes no sense. Thus, 回来 must be
considered metaphorical. But since it cannot be picked up in the first place, we must consider
the whole expression 捡回来 as a metaphor.

It is interesting to note that this metaphor correlates to the English “bring someone back to
life”. Oppositely, when someone dies, one can say:

And one can even say:
他 回 去 了
ta hui qu le
he return go PFV/CRS
He passed away. (Literally: He returned (away from speaker)).

We observe that in both English and Chinese, life is “here”, death is “away”. 回来, to return,
can be said to be a general, or “litteral”, metaphor as it describes a return to a previous state,
and it seems obvious that it is related to the “passing from one state to another” metaphors
indicated by 过来 (see page From undesirable to desirable state74) and 过去 (see page 79).

8) 话 又 说 回来 了，
hua you shuo huilai le
speech again say back-come ASP

你 这么 做 也 有 问题。
ni zheme zuo ye you wenti
On the other hand, there’s also a problem with you doing it that way.
(Gao, personal communication)

话又说回来 is a phrase used in colloquial Chinese that often has to do with correcting or
amending something one has said earlier, and it can be translated into something like “to
correct what I just said…”, “but then again...”, etc. In this way “回来 (huilai, return-back)” is
what is happening with the conversation, or rather the topic of the conversation, as a result of
说 (shuo, say). As what is returning back to the speakers (or to the original topic) is the topic
of the conversation (or a new argument), 回来 is not describing spatial motion or direction,

24
but rather the abstract idea of “talking oneself back” to a previous topic in the conversation in
order to correct a previously made statement, and must be considered metaphorical.

In this sentence the whole expression 顶回去 (ding huiqu, push back away from speaker)
must be considered metaphorical, as there is no actual pushing going on, but a “verbal
pushing” performed by “one sentence of mine”. It is, of course, obvious that a sentence
cannot push anyone away, but even if it did, the meaning of 顶 (ding, push) is not the action
of pushing, but to decline a request. It is, however, safe to say that if there is no pushing, there
is no spatial displacement going on. Thus, 回去 must in this case be regarded metaphorically
as a part of the (in this case) metaphorical expression 顶回去.

8.2 上来 - shanglai

上 (shang, up) is one of two type 2 verbs that indicate movement in an upward direction; the
other one is 起 (qi, upwards). The difference between the two is that 上 has a clear ending
point, while 起 does not.26 While 上 can be combined with both type 2 verbs, 起 can only be
combined with 来.

26
McElvenny(2006: 29)
25
It seems 上来, used metaphorically, is a relatively loose combination of V2 and V3, where 上
has the most prominent role. In many cases when indicating “addition” and “achievement” 来
plays a minor part and is sometimes not even necessary.

8.2.1 Addition, increase
上来 can indicate an addition of something to something else. The meaning of addition lies
with 上. Whether it’s 上来 or 上去 that is used depends on what one wants to focus on. When
上来 is used, the focus is on the main object or entirety27.

能 不 能 再 补 上来 几 个。
neng bu neng zai bu shanglai ji ge
can not can again supply up-come some CL
The people on this list are still not (many) enough, can you add some more?
(Liu et al., 2007)

In this case the focus is on the name list (名单). If 补上来 had been replaced with 补上去, the
name list would have been somewhere else than with the speaker and would not be the object
of focus.

Used in this way 上来 is actually less common than just using 上 alone28. Other verbs used
with 上 to indicate increment are 加 (jia, add), 填 (tian, fill) and 添 (tian, add/increase).
Conversely, 下降 (xiajiang, decline / lit. down-decend) can be used to describe a decline in
temperature, demand, importance, etc., while 高 (gao, high) and 低 (di, low) are often used to
describe amounts, as in salary, temperature, etc. These are all part of the underlying metaphor
“more is up; less is down”, which we find in English as well: The number of books printed
each year keeps going up. His draft number is high. My income rose last year. The amount of
27
Liu et al.(2007:551)
28
Liu et al.(2007:552)
26
artistic activity in this state has gone down in the past year. The numberof errors he made is
incredibly low. His income fell last year. If you’re too hot, turn the heat down.29

8.2.2 Hierachy of authority
上来, 上去, 下来 and 下去 can all indicate a passage (of information, documents, etc.) within
a hierarchy of authority. Since they are so closely related we will discuss them together below.

上 (shang, up) and 下 (xia, down) indicate superiority and inferiority respectively, while 来
(lai, towards speaker) and 去 (qu, away from speaker) indicate where the speaker is
positioned in relation to said authority. If something is passed to the speaker from a lower
authority, what is passed on is 上来-ing; coming up towards the speaker from the lower
position of authority. Oppositely, if something is passed on from the speaker to a lower
position, what is passed on is 下去-ing; going away from the speaker towards the lower
position of authority. In short, 上来, 上去, 下来 and 下去 function in the same way they
would when describing direction of physical displacement, only that in this case the
“direction” they indicate is of displacement within the metaphorical space of authority.
Consider the examples below:

All these examples clearly correlates with the underlying cognitive metaphor “having control
or force is up; being subject to control or force is down”, that we find in English as well: I
have control over her. I am on top of the situation. He’s in a superior position. He’s at the
height of his power. He’s in the high command. He’s in the upper echelon. His power rose.

28
He ranks above me in strength. He is under my control. He fell from power. His power is on
the decline. He is my social inferior. He is low man on the totem pole.30

8.2.3 Accomplishment
上来 can indicate accomplishment. This use of 上来 seems to be connected to verbs that have
to do with using one’s voice and it is often used in its potential form (and rarely in its non-
potential form). The accomplishment often has to do with whether or not one is able to answer
or say something based on one’s knowledge. Since knowledge is what’s “coming up”, we can
relate this to 起来 as in 想起来 (xiang qilai, remember), page 64. They are both part of the
underlying “conscious is up”.

In examples 16) - 19) above, we see that 上来 in 说不上来, 答不上来 and 叫不上来
indicates the (in)ability to say something; not because the speaker is physically unable to, but
because he/she doesn’t know what to say, what the answer is, etc. 说不出来 is very similar
and can mean the same thing, that the speaker lacks the knowledge needed to say something,
but 说不出来 can also mean that the speaker knows the answer, but does not want to share it,
or rather, cannot get oneself to say it.32 说不出来 can also indicate that the speaker knows

31
马五爷, Fifth Master Ma, is a character in Lao She’s ”Teahouse”.
32
Li, personal communication.
30
what to say, but is somehow unable to form the correct sentence, to utter the words or even
open his mouth.33 Meaning that the speaker doesn’t want to say something, one can in
colloquial Chinese also say 说不出口 (shuo bu chu kou, does not want to say/ could not bring
oneself to say [lit.: say not out mouth]).34

In many cases 说不上 has the same meaning as 说不上来 (as in example 18)), but 说不上来
is used in cases where it is followed by a dependent clause, as in example 19).35 This
establishes 上 as the prominent part of the compound used in this way.

Gao(2005) says that 说上来 indicating an emergence of a new situation or object is related to
上 indicating augmentation/increase, but this seems like a speculation rather than fact.

As mentioned above, the accomplishment indicated by 上来 has to do with knowledge. We
can also guess that 上 indicates that the knowlege is metaphorically “above” the speaker and
reaching this knowledge is therefore a victory or achievement. This is mere speculation, of
course, but we can find support for this in expressions like 买上 (mai shang, buy/manage to
buy [lit.: buy up]). While often translated simply as “to buy”, 买上 indicates that what is

33
Wang, personal communication.
34
Li, personal communication.
35
Wang, personal communication.
31
bought is something the buyer can only just afford, or of a certain economical imporatance.
As an example, in earlier times when bicycles were relatively uncommon and unobtainable
for the common man, one could “买上” a bicycle, but now that “everyone” has one, no one
would say that they “买上” a bicycle. Conversely, 买下 (mai xia, lit.: buy down) can be used
to indicate that what is bought was of little importance and a person using 买下 could come
across as somewhat arrogant.36 上 and 下 may in these cases be related to the hierarchy of
authority/status in section 8.2.2 above.

Other examples of 上 indicating achievement is 考上 (kao shang, pass an entrance
examination) [lit: study/take test up]) and 吃上 (chi shang, manage to eat [lit.: eat up]). The
former can be considered an achievement of something “above” the student, as in 考上大学
(kao shang daxue, be admitted to a university), while the latter is clearly not. E.g. 他吃上三
碗饭 (ta chi shang san wan fan, he ate [/managed to eat] three bowl of food) has nothing to do
with eating expensive food, but simply manage to eat as much as three bowls of it.

8.2.4 (Used as a verb:) Beginning or “flaring up”
上来 used on its own has another metaphorical meaning and although 上来 in these cases are
not used as a verb complement, we consider it worth mentioning, since we can relate it to the
“start is up; end/stop is down” metaphor that is later represented by 起来 and 下来. In the
examples below we can translate 上来 with “to start” or “flare up” and it often has to do with
human emotions or personality traits.37

8.3.2 Appraise
Used in this way 上去 is a “fixed” unit and cannot be split up.

24) 看 上去 挺 不 错 的。
kan shangqu ting bu cuo de
look up-go quite not wrong NOM
That looks good.
(Gao, 2005)
33
In this case 上去 indicates an evaluation of a situation or an object based on a visual
impression from the action 看 (kan, look).

The observant reader will later notice that this meaning of 上去 is very similar to the meaning
of 起来 (qilai, up-come) with the same verb, 看 (kan, look) in section 8.6.4; both 看上去 and
看起来 mean “it looks as if” or “it seems”.

They are indeed similar and are in many cases interchangeable, like in example (25), 26) and
27)) below:
25) 他 看 [起来 / 上去] 有 点 累
ta kan qilai / shangqu you dian lei
he looke up-come / up-go be a bit tired
He looks a bit tired.

Guessing someone’s age based on their appearance:
27) 看 [起来 / 上去] 他 有 四十 多 岁
kan qilai / shangqu ta you sishi duo sui
look up-come / up-come he be forty more years
He looks like he is over 40 years old.

In the previous three examples both 看起来 and 看上去 can be used and they have the same
meaning. In all of these examples the evaluation or assumption is made based on something
that can be physically seen and in this lies the subtle difference between 看起来 and 看上去:
看上去 is only an assumption based on what can be physically seen, while 看起来 can also be

34
used in a more abstract way, where the assumption is not made based on something that can
be physically seen, but rather on a situation or circumstances:

Here the assumption that “he” is not coming is based merely on the fact that the time is past
seven, a time implied to be too late for the speaker to find it likely that “he” will arrive –
which is a situation that can be perceived and not something that can be seen. It can thus even
be argued that the whole expression 看起来, and not only the directionaly complement 起来,
is metaphorical. But the point is, in example 28) 看上去 cannot be used, simply because there
is nothing visual to draw a conclusion or assumption from.

Also, only 看上去 can be used in situations where you look at something from a lower
position, of course, as in example (#) below, but then 上去 is not used metaphorically.38
从山脚看上去，山顶的亭子只能看出个轮廓 = looking up from the foot of the hill, one can
only see the outline of the pavilion on the mountain top.
29)
听 上去 还 真 像 想 那么 一 回 事 儿
ting shangqu hai zhen xiang xiang name yi hui shi er
listen up-og also true resemble think so one return matter NS
It sounds really reasonable.
(Gao, 2005)

As with 看上去 and 看起来, 听上去 and 听起来 are very similar, but they, too, have a slight
difference in usage. In most cases they are interchangeable, but in the same way that 看上去
can only be used in a situation where there is an immediate reaction to something that can be

38
http://www.inter-china.co.kr/community/lecturer/read.asp?lecturer_idx=8&search_field=subject&
search_text=&goto_page=1&board_idx=596. Visited October 2008.
35
physically seen, 听上去 can only be used in situations where there is an immediate reaction to
something that is actually heard. If, for instance, someone has read somewhere about
something that will make life less convenient, like strict regulations on when you’re allowed
to use your car or how much water you can use, and later tell a friend about what they have
read, they can say:
30) 这 件 事 听 起来 很 麻烦 了
zhe jian shi ting qilai hen mafan le
this CL matter listen rise-come very inconvenient CRS
This matter sounds inconvenient.

This would be an appropriate way to put it despite the fact that there has been no hearing
involved at all, as the speaker obtained the information from reading. 听上去 cannot be used
in this way.39

8.3.3 Hierarchy
上来, 上去, 下来 and 下去 can all indicate a passage (of information, documents, etc.) within
a hierarchy of authority. 上 (shang, up) and 下 (xia, down) indicate superiority and inferiority
respectively, while 来 (lai, towards speaker) and 去 (qu, away from speaker) indicate where
the speaker is positioned in relation to said authority. If something is passed on from the
speaker to a higher authority, what is passed on is 上去-ing; going up away from the speaker
towards the higher position of authority.

For examples and more information about this use of 上去, see 上来 – shanglai, page 27.

8.4 下来 – xialai

下来 is used with many verbs that represent the “down” part of various up/down oriented
underlying metaphors, e.g. “dark is down”, “stop is down”, and in most of these cases the
opposite (the “up” part of the same underlying metaphor is represented by verb + 起来, as in
“light is up” and “start is up”. What is quite interesting to note is that 下来 and 起来 in many
39
Wang Qi, personal communication.
36
cases seem to have more or less the same grammatical function, only with different verbs.
And which compound directional complement is used with what verb seems to be a matter of
semantics, as the verbs are semantical opposites corresponding to the underlying metaphors.

In several of the examples below, 来 is optional, which suggests that 下 is the prominent part
of the compound as a spatial metaphor.

That 下来 is very commonly used in the “down” part of various up/down oriented underlying
metaphors further indicates that 下, indicating a downward motion, is the more important part
in forming spatial metaphors.

8.4.1 Completion of action
To say that 下来 can indicate a completion of action is perhaps a bit too generic a term for
how 下来 functions with the verbs in this section, but in lack of a better term under which to
arrange them “compl.o.a” will have to suffice. Among the examples below, the verbs
preceding 下来 are mostly activity verbs like 写 (xie, write) and 停 (ting, stop).

It may not be obvious that this sentence is metaphorical, as one can imagine “down” being the
physical direction in which someone would be writing. We will, however, argue that it is
metaphorical, as one could still “write down” something while lying on the back with a pen
and paper above one’s head or holding a pen and paper up against a wall. The same argument
goes for the two next examples.

Examples 31) - 34) above have to do with storing some kind of information and we can
generally say that “storing is down”. “Restoring is up” is discussed in section 8.6.5. We can
also note that we in English say “write down”, “note down” and “draw down”.

Stopping is the opposite of starting, which is the meaning of 起来 after action verbs (see page
48), and so we have that “start is up; stop is down”. The next two examples can be said to be
semantically related as they indicate a transition from motion/activity to inactivity.

Examples ## below have to do with separating objects from one another. We will later see
that 起来 is used with verbs that have to do with bringing objects together. The underlying
metaphorical concept is “Bringing together is up; separating is down”.

38) 因为 太 热， 他 把 帽子 脱 下来。
yinwei tai re ta ba maozi tuo xialai
because too hot he BA hat take off down-come
Because it was too warm, he took off his hat.

44) 他 把 旅行 后 的 纪念品 保存 下来。
ta ba lüxing hou de jinianpin baocun xialai
he BA travel after ASC souvenir keep down-come
He stored away the souvenirs from his travels.
40
8.4.2 Gradual development of a condition
Grammatically, 下来 in the below sentences indicate a gradual development of the condition
described by the preceding stative verb/adjective. Semantically speaking the stative verbs
have to do with a transition to a more passive state.

45) 屋 里 终于 安静 下来 了。
wu li zhongyu anjing xialai le
house inside at last calm down-come CRS/PFV
At last it was quiet in the house.
(Zhu, 2005)

(Wenlin40,a software for learning Chinese,lists 安静下去 with the same meaning as 安静下来,
but in all the examples considered for this study, the former meant “to continue to be quiet”,
and not “become quiet”. This does not, of course, rule out the possibility that 安静下去 may
have the same meaning as 安静下来, but it is an indication that it is less commonly used this
way.41)

We notice that the English translation includes expressions like “calm down” and “quiet
down”, indicating the same metaphorical direction as in their Chinese counterparts. The
following example is related in meaning.

Oppositely, if his voice got louder, one could replace 低了下来 in the above example with 高
了起来 (gao le qilai, lit. high CRS up-come), which indicates the underlying concept that
“loud is up; calm/quiet is down”.

The two following examples are part of the underlying metaphor “light is up; dark is down”,
which is the same in both English and Mandarin. 下来, indicating a downward motion
(towards speaker), is used to indicate the process of going from light to dark. English has
correspondent expressions like “the night descended on the forest” and “darkness fell”. The
opposite side of the underlying metaphor, the process of going from dark to light, is indicated
by 起来 (qilai, up towards speaker), indicating the opposite metaphorical “direction”. This
also correlates with English expressions like “light up” and “brighten up”. For examples and
more information on this use of 起来, see section 8.6.2.
49) 显示器 黑 下来 了
xiashiqi hei xialai le
monitor black down-come CRS/PFV

On a sidenote, 看来 in this example, meaning “it looks like”, is mentioned under section
8.68.6.4 in relation to 看起来 (kan qilai, it looks like).

8.4.3 Hierarchy
上来, 上去, 下来 and 下去 can all indicate a passage (of information, documents, etc.) within
a hierarchy of authority. 上 (shang, up) and 下 (xia, down) indicate superiority and inferiority
respectively, while 来 (lai, towards speaker) and 去 (qu, away from speaker) indicate where
the speaker is positioned in relation to said authority. If something is passed to the speaker
from a higher authority, what is passed on is 下来-ing; coming down towards the speaker
from the higher position of authority.

For examples and more information about this use of 下来, see 上来 – shanglai, page 25.

8.4.4 (Used as a verb:) “Come to an end”
After “time nouns” 下来 can indicate the end of a period of time. Used in this way 下来 is not
a complement to a verb, of course, but a verb. It is, however, worth including due to its close
ties to the notion that time in Mandarin moves downward and the similarty to the meaning of
下来 in examples 41) - 44). 下去 and 起来, which typically indicate continuation and start of
action respectively, cannot be used in this way42.

你 就 能 有 很 大 进步。
ni jiu neng you hen da jinbu
you already can have very big progress
If you study hard, then after a month you will already have progressed a lot.
(Li, personal communication)

8.5 下去 – xiaqu

As mentioned earlier, in the Chinese language and apparently also in the Chinese way of
thinking, time moves downward, and the metaphorical uses of 下去 are mainly related to time.

8.5.1 Continuation of action or condition
下去 can indicate continuation of actions and conditions after a majority of action verbs and
static verbs/adjectives respectively. When used in this way, 下去 is a particular case in that its
grammatical function and metaphorical meaning is the same. The only other directional verb
complement that functions like this is 起来 indicating start of action or condition (see section
8.6.1 and 8.6.2).

Considering the metaphorical concept that time is moving downward, it seems logical that
continuation from the present and into the future is “moving” down and away. If the speaker
is located on a vertical time line, time above and coming down towards him is past (until it
44
arrives his location, at which point the time is “now”) and time moving further down below
and away from him is the future.

下去 can also mean “continue” when used as a verb (see section 8.5.3 below).

8.5.2 Hierarchy
上来, 上去, 下来 and 下去 can all indicate a passage (of information, documents, etc.) within
a hierarchy of authority. 上 (shang, up) and 下 (xia, down) indicate superiority and inferiority
respectively, while 来 (lai, towards speaker) and 去 (qu, away from speaker) indicate where
the speaker is positioned in relation to said authority. If something is passed to the speaker
from a lower authority, what is passed on is 上去-ing; going away from the speaker towards
the higher position of authority.

For examples and more information about this use of 上去, see section 8.2.2, page 27.

46
8.5.3 (Used as a verb:) Continue
On its own as a verb 下去 can mean “to continue”, which is, of course, closely related to its
meaning as a verb complement indicating the continuation of the action or condition
described by the preceding verb.

60) 你 这样 下去 会 进 监狱 的
ni zheyang xiaqu hui jin jianyu de
you like this continue can enter prison NOM
If you go on like this you will be put into prison.
(Hanying da cidian)

8.5.4 Appraise (potential form)
Used with certain verbs, like 看 (kan, look), 说 (shuo, say) and 听 (ting, listen), verb+下去
can express the speaker’s evaluation of a situation. 下来” cannot be used to express appraise
in this way. 看不下去 (kan bu xiaqu, cannot continue to watch), for instance, may be used in
several situations43. E.g. cannot continue reading a book because it’s too hard to understand,
cannot continue to watch because something is embarrassing or if something is unreasonable.
The action described by the verb, in this case “to look/watch” is not necessarily meant
literally. To be unable to watch because something is unreasonable may be literally true, as if
one watched someone beat a child, or not literally true, as if one knows of a corrupt official
who obuses his power and think that it has gone far enough.44

8.6 起来 - qilai

起来 is one of the most common metaphorically used compound directional complements and
it also has a variety of metaphorical meanings. Though, as we will see in the examples below,
many of the different variations are closely related and may in some cases be regarded as
subgroups of each other.

43
Gao(2005).
44
Li, personal communication.
47
起, like 上, describes motion in an upward direction, but 起 is more speaker oriented in that it
most often describes motion from ground level to eye height. And unlike 上 it has no specific
ending point.

下来 often comprises the opposite metaphorical direction in underlying concepts where 起来
is the “up” part of the metaphor, as in “light is up; dark is down” and “start is up; stop is
down”.

It also seems natural to contrast 起来 indicating start and 下去 indicating continuation. They
can both be used with any grammatical type of verb, and like 下去 (indicating continuation),
起来 indicating start is a particular case in that its grammatical function and metaphorical
meaning is the same.

起来 can in some cases be split up without any significant change of meaning. In most cases
来 is the part that is optional, e.g. 唱起(来) (chang qi(lai),begin to sing) and 想起(来) (xiang
qi(lai), to remember), which are both representations of up/down oriented metaphor, but 看起
来 (kan qilai, looks/seems like) can in most cases be interchanged with 看来, excluding 起.

In up/down oriented metaphors, 起 is naturally the more significant part of the compound.
There are other words (besides verb complements) in Mandarin which include 起 and have
meanings that correlate to the metaphorical use of 起来. These will be mentioned under the
appropriate subsections below.

8.6.1 Start of action
To indicate the start of an action or condition is a very common use 起来 and is often one of
the first metaphorical uses of compound directional complement encountered by foreign
students of Mandarin.

This use of 起来 conforms to the general cognitive metaphor in Mandarin that “start is up;
end/stop is down”. Conversely, 下来 is used with verbs like 慢 (man, slow down) and 停
(ting, stop). What is important to note, however, is that although 下来 used with verbs like 慢

48
and 停 can indicate a slowing down or stop, this use is very specific in combination with said
verbs and 下来 indicates the result of the verbs rather than the stopping or slowing down. 起
来 used as “to start an action”, on the other hand, is much more generic and can be used with
most action verbs. Though, as we will see in this section about 起来 (and in the section about
下来), 下来 is often used as the opposite of 起来 within general cognitive metaphors (as in
the above “start is up; end/stop is down”).

In the following we will find examples of start of action or condition as well as “process of
starting”, or rather start of action/condition followed by a gradual development.

In the examples above, 起来 expresses beginning of an action (61) - 64), 65) and 66)) or
condition (example 65)); relatively sudden changes from a static state, e.g. start crying, start
raining, start ringing and start talking, which describes a change of conditions that takes place

50
within a short period of time. The examples above also demonstrate the variety of verbs that
can be used with 起来.

There are various words with 起 in them that have to do with beginning or start. Below are
some of them.
起初 qichu, at first, originally.
起先 qixian, at first, in the beginning, originally.
起身 qishen, start (a journey).
起身 literally means “raise body”, which may be suggestive of how 起 came to indicate
beginning or start; you start your journey by getting up. With this in mind, consider the next
three words.
起航 qihang, start a journey (of ships/planes/etc.). Literally “raise boat”.
起点 qidian, starting point. Literally “raise point”. The point where one rose, the point where
one starts (a journey, a task, etc.).
起步 qibu, start (a task). Literally “raise step”.

起源 qiyuan, originate (verb), origin (noun).
源 can also mean “source” on its own. It is interesting to note that 源 can be combined with
the other part of 起来 to form a word that means more or less the same:
来源 laiyuan, origin, source.

8.6.2 Start of change of condition (gradual development of condition)
The function of 起来 in this section is actually the same as in the previous section and the
only difference in semantic meaning is related to the type of verb used. So the choice to make
this a separate section has more to do with arrangement preferences than grammatic functions,
and most of all a desire to make it more easily comparable to 下来, which in many cases has a
similar function of describing gradual development of a condition, but in the metaphorically
opposite direction.

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In the following examples, 起来 indicates a process, something starting to happen; or more
specifically, the start of a change of a condition over time. The verbs used with 起来 in this
way are more static verbs, so-called condition verbs or simply adjectives.

In Mandarin, as in English, “warm is up; cold is down”. In English there are expressions like
“heat up” and “cool down”, in Mandarin 下来 is used with verbs like 冷 (leng, cold) to
express the process of getting cold, the opposite of the above 暖和起来 and 热起来. Granted,
one can perfectly well say “冷起来”, but it is less common45 and indicates a more sudden
change than “冷下来”, which indicates to a larger degree the process of getting cold46. One
can say that “冷起来” indicates that it’s starting to get cold and “冷下来” indicates the
process from warm to cold47, but for most practical purposes they are interchangeable.

稍稍 红润 起来 了。
shaoshao hongrun qilai le
slightly rosy up-come CRS
After three days of eating food with the other soldiers, the colour started to return to
Lu Hua’s face.
(Gao, 2005)

It’s less obvious which general metaphor, if any, this last example best fits in with, but we can
note that in English one could say “the colour rose in his cheeks”, using the same verb, “rise”,
as in the verb complement used in Mandarin (起 = rise/raise).

In the following examples 起来 is used with static verbs/adjectives that have to do with
brightening, and they demonstrate the underlying metaphor that “light is up; dark is down”,
which is the same in both English and Mandarin. Expressions like “light up” and “brighten
up” are examples of light being up in English. The directional complement used with words
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like 黑 (hei, dark) and 暗 (an, dark/dim) to express the process of darkening is 下来 (xialai,
down towards speaker), indicating the opposite metaphorical “direction”. This also correlates
with English expressions like “the night descended on the forest” and “darkness fell”. For
examples and more information on this use of 下来, see 8.4, page 36.

After verbs that represent an underlying metaphor, like “warm is up” and “light is up”, 起来
can be said to have two meanings at once; the beginning of the change of condition and the
representation of the underlying metaphor.

54
Gao(2005) says that after “momentary verbs”, like 藏 (cang, hide), “躲 (duo, avoid/hide)”,
“收 (shou, gather)” etc., 起来 expresses both beginning and completion (result) of the action
(we will look at this in the next section); after “durational verbs”, like “笑 (xiao, laugh)”, “打
(da, beat/hit)”, “哭 (ku, cry)” etc. 起来 only expresses the beginning of an action, and after
adjective it only expresses the beginning of a change of a condition. More or less all the
examples in this section are examples of such changes in condition taking place over a longer
period of time, where 起来 is placed after an adjective, and they support Gao’s claim. It can
be argued that 起来 indicates completion of a condition in these cases as well, since the result
of the adjective + 起来 is a new condition, e.g. in example 71), Lu Hua’s face is rosy as a
result of the change (from a condition of “non-rosiness”), and in example 67) the weather is
now warm as a result of the change in temperature, but on the other hand, the change hasn’t
necessarily ended; the weather could get even warmer, and we can even imagine that Lu
Hua’s face could get “rosier”. In the next section we will look at examples with the previously
mentioned “momentary verbs” and see that in those cases there is a definite completion of the
action.

It is interesting to observe that 下来 after adjectives can have a very similar grammatical
meaning to what 起来 has in the examples above, namely a gradual change in condition. As
metioned above, the directional complement used is determined by the verb/adjective; some
adjectives go together with 下来 and some go together with 起来, and they are often
opposites in various general cognitive metaphors, e.g. “light is up; dark is down”, “warm is up;
cold is down”, “start is up; end/stop is down”. For a comparison, see section 8.4, page 36.

8.6.3 Completion of action
In the previous section 起来 was used together with action verbs to indicate start of action and
with adjectives to indicate development of a condition. In this section most of the verbs are
so-called “momentary verbs” and 起来 following these verbs indicates a completion of the
action described by the verb rather than a start or progress of the action. It can be argued that
the completion of the action is a necessity that lies in the nature of the momentary verbs rather
than in a specific use of 起来. After all, to say “start to hide” or “start to lock up” seem
meaningless since “hide” and “lock up” have an implicit “binary” condition connected to
55
them; you are either hidden or you are not, you are either locked up or you are not. Still, 起来
takes on a slightly different meaning after these verbs and therefore it seems natural to discuss
them in a separate section.
76) 她 肯定 是 躲 起来 了。
ta kending shi duo qilai le
she definitely be hide raise-come CRS/PFV
She has definitely gone into hiding.
(Gao, 2005)

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This is incidentally also an example of 下来 indicating separation, which is the opposite of
bringing together, which is what most of the examples in this section are related to. And so we
have “bringing together is up; separating is down”. (For “separating is down”, see section 8.4,
page 36).

Some may find it interesting to note the apparent counter-intuitivity in using 起来 with such
verbs as 关 (guan, hide), 躲 (duo, avoid/hide) and 藏 (cang, hide), as these verbs that imply
some kind of disappearance of an object or person and are paired with 起来, which literally
means “rise/up towards speaker”, which is the opposite of what one would expect to be
connected to something that is doing the exact opposite, going away (and down, according to
Gao(2005), which says that one of extended meanings of 下 (xia, down) is to express
departure or disappearance and explains this with 下 indicating “down into a cognitive space”
and out of sight). However, although it seems obvious that the metaphorical use of directional
verb complements in most cases are based on our experience of the world around us, we also
know that trying to determine why a given language considers an action or phenomenon to
take on a given direction. But before we go any further, let us compare some expressions in
the examples above with their English counterparts. The English translation of 关起来 in
example 78) is “to lock up” and 包起来 in example 79) is translated “wrap up”, which both fit
the “Mandarin direction”.

On a sidenote: “关起来” and “关上” can both be used to say “close the door”, as in “把门关
起来” and “把门关上”. Only 起来 can be used to “lock someone up”, as in “把他关起来” =
“lock him up” (one cannot say *把他关上), while only 上 can be used to turn off a machine
or apparatus as in “把收音机关上” = “turn off the radio” (one cannot say *把收音机关起
来).48

The following examples all conform to “bringing together is up; separating is down”.

This last example is also an instance of “more is up; less is down”. On a sidenote, the
difference between 加起来 and 加上 is that the former is used when combining two specific
amounts, numbers, etc. together while 加上 is used when adding an amount or number to
another non-specific amount (as in “add two more spoons of sugar to the tea”).

A very common word that has 起 in it and has to do with “bringing together is up” is 一起
(yiqi, together), which literally means “one raise”.

8.6.4 Appraise/evaluation
After certain “sense verbs”, 起来 indicates an assumption or evaluation of a situation based
on the sense verb used. Gao(2005) says this meaning is connected to the meaning of 起来
expressing start/beginning of an action: when 起来 marks the beginning of an action, people
can often calculate or evaluate the result of the action.

看起来 is very common in colloquial Chinese and is special in that the assumption or
evaluation is very loosely based on 看 (kan, look). In some cases the assumption or evaluation
is not based on something that is physically seen, but rather a logical conclusion. For
examples and a more elaborate explanation, see 上去 – shangqu, page 33.

吃 起来 就是 比 别的 摊点儿 好。
chi qilai jiushi bi bie de tan dian’er hao
eat raise-come be compare other booth good
That jellied beancurd dish of his really lives up to the family traditions, it tastes better than
(the same dish at) the other booths.
(Gao, 2005)

As mentioned above, 看起来 (kan qilai, looks/seems like) in particular and also 听起来 (ting
qilai, sounds like) are very common in colloquial Chinese and the former can almost be
regarded as a fixed expression. With other verbs, like 吃 (chi, eat) in example 87), there is still
an evaluation or assumption based on the verb, but it seems less obvious, and as we will see in
the following, we can have this evaluation with verbs that don’t have to do with senses at all.

On a sidenote:
A very similar meaning to 看起来 and 听起来 can be obtained by using 上去 (shangqu, up-
go) after the same verbs. For a comparison of 看起来/看上去 (both: “looks like”) and 听起来
/听上去 (both: “sounds like”), see 上去 – shangqu, page 33.

Zhu(2005) claims that 起来 can mean ”…的时候” (… de shihou, at the time of…) and, in
many cases, that is a good way of looking at it. However, we will argue that the function of 起
来 in the following is the same meaning of evaluation that we have just discussed above.

In the examples above 起来 is a complement to “sense verbs” and in the following examples
it is not. It is easy to imagine an evaluation based on something one has seen, heard, smelled
60
or tasted. It is not particularly hard to imagine an evaluation based on something one has done,
either, but verbs like 做 (zuo, do), 穿 (chuan, wear) and 唱 (chang, sing) in the examples
below may be hard to regard as basis for evaluation. From an English speaker’s point of view
it easier to translate examples with sense verbs. You can say: it looks like, it sounds like, it
smells like and it tastes like; you cannot say: it does like, it wears like and it sings like. And,
admittedly, the “at the time of ‘verbing’” is not a bad translation in many cases, and it’s hard
to ignore the whole time aspect all together. Still, we will argue that the examples in the
following are related to appraisal.

This is an example where it is hard to ignore the time relation. It is still quite obvious that
there is an evaluation in this example, as we must assume that the matter at hand wasn’t
actually easy when it was mentioned, and then difficult when done, it only seemed easy at the
time. But it is also quite obvious that this assumption wasn’t made based on 说 (shuo, to say),
as an assumption based on one’s own utterance would be a logical contradiction, but rather at
the time it was said.

A translation like the common saying “it’s easier said than done” would break the connection
to both time and assumption, as what is easy is no longer connected to the matter at hand, but
rather the act of talking about it, as in “to talk about it is easy, to do it is difficult”, and that
would be to oversimplify the meaning of 说起来 and 做起来 in the above sentence. This is
illustrated by the next example:

This sentence does not merely mean “this piece of clothing is nice to look at, but
uncomfortable to wear”. That the item of clothing is uncomfortable is an evaluation made on
the basis of having tried it on and not merely a statement of the “fact” or assumption that it is
uncomfortable to wear. If someone has been told that a shirt, for instance, is uncomfortable to
wear, they cannot say that it is uncomfortable by using 穿起来不舒服, and two different
people’s opinion about the same shirt might differ after they have both tried it on, and in that
case one person could say that the shirt 穿起来不舒服 (not comfortable when worn) and the
other could say that the shirt 穿起来很舒服 (comfortable when worn). In other words, that
the shirt is comfortable (or not) is not simply a statement, that the shirt is comfortable to wear,
but it is an evaluation based on the personal experience of having worn it.49

Also, if one wants to express an assumption about whether or not the shirt is comfortable to
wear based on how it looks, one would not use 穿起来, but instead use a sentence with 看起
来 or 看上去 (both: looks like).

So, 穿起来 expresses an evalution based on the action of actually wearing the piece of
clothing in question. This means that the meaning of 起来 in this sentence has more to do
with appraisal than time. Moreover, it can be argued that to translate 穿起来不舒服 with “not
comfortable when worn” does not necessarily have much to do with time per se, but expresses
more or less the same evaluation. In other words, it is implied that the speaker thinks that the
shirt, for instance, is uncomfortable after having tried it on, not that it was uncomfortable at a
specific time when he/she wore it. The difference in meaning is in any case very slight, and
we think it is safe to say that the meaning of 起来 in such sentences is to express appraisal,
but that it is also slightly connected to the time aspect.

This sentence is very similar to example (89)) in that there is both a sense verb (听, ting, listen)
with 起来 and an action verb (唱, chang, sing) with 起来. In (89)) it seems quite obvious that
起来 in 看起来 indicates an appraisal based on the action of seeing (看). In (90)), although it
is also quite obvious that 起来 in 听起来 indicates an appraisal based on the action of
listening (听), it can be argued that even 听起来 in this case is time related and means “when
listened to”, since it sounds less natural to say “this song sounds like it’s pleasant to hear”.
But the reason why the sentence has 听起来 and not simply says 这首歌很好听 (this song is
pleasant to hear), is a means of stressing the difference between the first part of the sentence
and the last. “Verb1 + 起来 A, verb2 + 起来 B” is a prevalent sentence structure that is often
translated with “while A, still B”.

In any event, 唱起来 in this sentence can be regarded in the exact same way as 穿起来 in
(89)); that the song is not easy to sing is an evaluation based on the personal experience of
having tried to sing it.

In general we can say that this use of 起来 indicates evaluation based on the experience of
having “verbed”, or translate it with “in terms of ’verbing’”.

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8.6.5 Remember, “raise into consciousness”
起来 may be used with ”verbs of remembrance” to indicate recollection or remembrance.

92)
他 想 了 半 天 也 没 想 起来 我 是 谁。
ta xiang le ban tian ye mei xiang qilai wo shi shei
he think PFV half day also not think up-come I be who
He thought for a really long time and could still not remember who I am.
(Zhu, 2005)

想起来 is a common way of saying that one remembers something. 想 generally means “to
think” or “to consider” and unlike the verbs in the examples below, does not by itself mean
“to remember”. It may be interesting to compare 想起来 to 想出来 (xiang chulai, think
up/figure out) discussed under section 8.7. The latter literally means “think out towards
speaker” and is an emergence of an idea, an idea coming towards the speaker out of the
thinking process, while 想起来, which literally means “think up towards speaker”, is a
recollection of a memory, something that comes up from a cognitive hiding place towards the
speaker.

93) 你 回忆 起来 他 是 谁 了 没 有？
ni huiyi qilai ta shi shei le mei you
you recall up-come he be who CRS not have
Do you recall who he is or not?
(Zhu, 2005)

Both 回忆 in example (93)) and 记得 in example (94)) means “to remember” and, although
起来 is undoubtedly metaphorical, as there is no spatial displacement connected with
rememberance, it may be difficult to immediately see the function of 起来 in these sentences.
This has to do with how an English speaker understands remembrance. An English speaker
would say that rememberance is binary; you either remember something, or you don’t. The
Chinese seem to think of rememberance as a process; an attempt to remember. And the
function of 起来 is to indicate the completion of this process, to successfully have raised the
memory up into the open from the depths of a cognitive space. If 起来 had been left out of the
sentences in example (93)) and (94)), we would not be talking about remembering something
that had temporarily been forgotten, but a process of remembering that was never halted: it
was never forgotten in the first place.50 If one cannot remember something, one could say:
95) 我 回忆 不 起来
wo huiyi bu qilai
I remember not up-come
I can’t remember.

We can consider the meaning of this sentence to be something like “I am trying to remember,
but I am unable to complete the process”.

起来 seems like a logical directional complement to use for indicating remembrance.
Considering one of the English cognitive metaphors mentioned in the introduction to this
chapter, “conscious is up; unconscious is down” and what we mentioned earlier in this chapter
about 下 (xia, down) indicating “down into a cognitive space” (Gao, 2005), it is consistent
with this view that 起 (qi, rise/up) indicates a transfer from the unconscious to the conscious;
bringing the memory out from inside the cognitive container below and up into the conscious
50
Wang, personal communication.
65
space above. Also, if we consider remembrance an emergence of a memory, the use of 来 (lai,
come/motion towards speaker) is consistent with the emergence aspect we have seen
connected to 来 in other examples, like in 出来 (see page 66).

If we want to look at “raising a memory into consciousness” as restoring a memory, 起来
used with these verbs may also be part of a cognitive metaphor “restoring is up; storing is
down” and thus related to 恢复 (huifu, restore) + 起来. As with many other general cognitive
metaphors, the opposite (“storing is down”) is represented by verbs combined with 下来: 记
下来 (ji xialai, make a note of/ write down), 录下来 (lu xialai, record), 写下来 (xie xialai,
write down). For more on this, see 下来, page 36.

8.7 出来 – chulai

The concrete meaning of 出来 is to exit (something) in the direction of the speaker, or a
reference point specified by the speaker. Its metaphorical meanings are closely related to its
concrete meaning in that they indicate the revelation or emergence of something from a
cognitive container, if you will, through recognition or an act, particularly actions involving
senses.

8.7.1 Realisation (distinguish between people and things)
出来 after certain verbs can indicate a realisation based on the action described by the
preceding verb. These verbs are often verbs of sense, like hearing and sight, or verbs that
imply use of senses, like “to search” and “to recognise”. In general, this metaphorical
meaning of 出来 is “to find out or realise (something) through the action described by the
preceding verb”.
96) 你 看 得 出来 这 是 谁 的 字 吗？
ni kan de chulai zhe shi shei de zi ma
you look obtain out-come this be who GEN character Q
Are you able to see whose characters (whose writing) these are?
(Zhu, 2005)

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This is not merely a matter of seeing per se; a more accurate translation would perhaps be “are
you able to find out whose characters these are by looking at them?”. 出来 indicates an
emergence of an understanding or realisation as a result of the action, which in this case is to
look.

In the following example with the same verb (看 kan, to look), the meaning is similar, but
slightly different. If you point out to someone that they have a stain on their shirt, an
appropriate response could be:

97) 我 怎么 看 不 出来？
wo zenme kan bu chulai
I how look not out-come
How could I have missed that? (How could I not have noticed?).51

In the case with the characters in example 96) there was a question of finding out something
by looking at it. In this example, the person in question had failed to notice that his/her shirt
was stained. If we want to be picky we could say that the person failed to realise that the shirt
was stained by looking at it, and that 看出来 has the exact same meaning in both examples,
but for all practical purposes we can judge it unlikely that the person’s meaning is “I noticed
the stain on my sweater, but failed to realize what it was”.

Similarly, 听出来 can have two slightly different meanings. Consider examples 98) and 99)
below:

听出来 means realisation or understanding from listening and these two examples
demonstrate the two different kinds of realisation that can be related to listening. In example
98) “I” realises that the person he/she is talking to is Ma Li, based on the sound of her voice.
This sentence is likely to be used over the phone or perhaps if someone hears a familiar voice
out in the hallway from her office and looks to confirm that it is, in fact, Ma Li who’s talking
out in the hallway. This realisation of recognising someone from the sound of their voice is a
realisation directly connected to the act of listening, without the need of much reasoning. Still,
even in this case, there is a certain indirect relation to the sound listened to, as there is a
recognition based on the additional information from having heard the person’s voice before.
If, for instance, one was talking to someone on the phone with bad reception, where it’s a
question of whether or not one is able to hear the sound (no thought process/recognition
needed), one would not use 听出来, but 听(不)清楚 (ting (bu) qingchu, can(not) hear clearly).
If one does not hear who is on the other end or if there is one word one does not hear clearly,
听出来 can be used. This is related to the meaning of 出来 indicating ability to distinguish
between people and things, as discussed earlier in this section.

Example 99) is taken from a scene in a fiction novel where a couple is having an argument,
and it demonstrates another kind of realisation based on 听 (ting, listen); a realisation of

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meaning hidden in between words. An argument, which is the context of said example, is
normally not a situation where it’s hard to pick up on aggressive feelings communicated by
the person you are arguing with, but the same is true for more subtle hints in any conversation.
Contrary to the realisation in example 98), this kind of understanding is not directly connected
to what one hears, but is a result of reasoning based on information in what one hears. In this
way, this meaning of 听出来 is closely related to 想出来 (xiang chulai, think up/figure out) in
example 103) in that it is a result of a thinking process.

69
In this example “I” finds out that the drink in question is maotai by tasting it.

In all the above examples it is quite obvious that 出来 indicates a realisation. The probable
physical explanation for this use of 出来 is also quite obvious; something that is revealed to
you comes towards you out from its “hiding place”. We see the same cognitive metaphor in
the English language: find out, the realisation came to me, figure out.

8.7.2 Emergence, production (into existence)
This second meaning of 出来 is closely related to the previous “emergence of realisation”, but
the emergence in the following examples are less abstract and what is emerging may even be
concrete objects.

想出来 means to come up with some idea or solution as a result of thinking. This may sound
very similar to the use of 出来 as realisation and it may indeed be argued that 想 is very
similar to a verb that has to do with the senses, like 看 (kan, look) and 听 (ting, listen). In
addition, of the examples that have to do with emergence, this example is by far the most
abstract. The reason why we have chosen to file 想出来 under “emergence” and not
“realisation” is that 想 is not a verb directly connected to the senses and, contrary to the use of
出来 indicating realisation, what is emerging (be it an idea, a plan or even some kind of
realisation) is not a result of an external impression, but originates from the person himself.
104) 好 的 产品 不 是 只 靠 先进
hao de chanpin bu shi zhi kao xianjin
good ASC procuct not be only rely on advanced
的 技术 就 能 生产 出来
de jishu jiu neng shengchan chulai
ASC technology simply can produce out-come
70
(In order to) produce good products, (one) doesn't just rely on advanced
technology.

105)
他 创造 出来 一 种 很 好 的 学习 方法。
ta chuangzai chulai yi zhong hen hao de xuexi fangfa
he produce out-come one kind very good ASC study method
He came up with a very good learning method

生产 in example 104) and 创造 105) both mean “to produce”, but the latter is often used
about abstract concepts, as shown in the example above.

The observant reader may have noticed the similarity between this last example and example
31) (page 37) and asked him or herself what the difference between 写出来 and 写下来 is.
While the two are quite similar and describe the same action, 写出来 describes more of a
mental process, while 写下来 is more of a physical process. If you cannot 写出来 your name,
you may have forgotten it, or you don’t remember the characters with which to write it, etc. If
you cannot 写下来 your name, it’s more likely that you have injured your hand or otherwise
impaired your physical ability to write your name. This further illustrates the “mental
emergence” aspect of 出来, and we can see that this fits in with the underlying
“Consciousness is here; unconsciousness is away”, which we find represented by 过来
(guolai, pass-come), page 74, and 过去 (guoqu, pass-go), page 79, but while 过来 and 过去
describe passing in opposite directions, towards and away from consciousness, 出来, as in
example 103), describes coming out into consciousness from the thinking process (想).

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8.7.3 Unexpectedness (exceeding expectations)
Zhu(2005) says that 出来 often expresses that an amount or some kind of range or amount is
exceeded. It is correct that when used this way, 出来 is often used as a complement to an
adjective, has a comparative meaning and often has to do with elements of amount, but we
will argue that what is exceeded is expectations, not range or amount. Consider the examples
below:
107)
今天 比 昨天 多 出来 200 块 钱。
jintian bi zuotian duo chulai 200 kuai qian
today compare yesterday much out-come 200 Ch. yuan money
There is 200 yuan more (here) today than there was yesterday (and that was
unexpected).
(Zhu, 2005)

To say “there is 200 yuan more (here) today than there was yesterday” we could simply
remove 出来 and say 今天比昨天多了 200 块钱. 出来 indicates that it was unexpected to
find 200 yuan that wasn’t there yesterday, like if one was counting money and it turned out to
be 200 yuan more than you expected it to be.52

108) 这 根 比 那 根 长 出来 一些。
zhe gen bi na gen chang chulai yi xie
this CL53 compare that CL long out-come a little
This one is a little longer than that one (and that was unexpected).
(Zhu, 2005)

To say “this one is a bit longer than that one”, one could perfectly well remove 出来 and say
这根比那根长了一些. In the example above, 出来 indicates that it was surprising to find that
one of the objects was longer than the other.54

52
Wang, personal communication.
53
(根 is a measure word for long objects)
54
Wang, personal communication.
72
109) 这 孩子 今年 又 高 出 了 不 少。
zhe haizi jinnian you gao chu le bu shao
this child this year again tall out PFV not little
Again (even more) this year this child has grown by a lot (grown by an
unexpected amount).
(Zhu, 2005)

As in the two previous sentences, if we remove 出 and say 这孩子今年又高了不少, it would
mean “again (even more) this year this child has grown by a lot”, and 出 indicates that the
amount by which the child has grown exceeds the expectations of the speaker. The sentence
in 109) would be appropriate if, for instance, the speaker met the child for the first time in a
long while, and discovered that the child had grown by a surprising amount since the last time
he/she saw it, but the same sentence would not be appropriate if the speaker saw the child
often and were to tell someone that he or she had grown by a lot this year, since the
observation would not be unexpected. In that case, one would use the sentence without 出.55

As shown above, the English translations do not convey the full meaning of the sentences, or
more particularly, the meaning of 出来. All of these sentences compare one amount to
another, and yes, they exceed the previous amounts, but 出来 indicates the surprise that the
amount that is exceeded, not the fact that the amount in itself is exceeded. We have seen that
if we remove 出(来), the comparative meaning is still there (as is, of course the exceeding of
amount), so it is clear that 出来 does not have anything to do with the comparative meaning
as such, but brings the element of surprise (from the speaker’s point of view).

The following sentence is an example of 出来 indicating surprise without any comparative
meaning or exceeding of amount involved:
110) 我 还 想 - 着 你 不 会 那么 好意思，
wo hai xiang zhe ni bu hui name hao yisi
I still think DUR you not can this/so have the nerve

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Wang, personal communication.
73
谁 知道 你 真 能 干 出来!
shei zhidao ni zhen neng gan chulai
who know you real can do out-come
I didn’t think you would have the nerve, who would have guessed that you
would really do it.
(Gao, 2005)

In this case 出来 is a complement to a verb, 干 (gan, do) and not an adjective like in the
previous examples, and the unexpectedness is in this case connected to the verb, to what is
done, and not an exceeding of an amount connected to an adjective. This kind of
unexpectedness is often related to something negative, as in “how could you do such a thing?”.

About “surprise or exceeding unexpectations”; if we turn it around a bit, we can say that a
surprise is in extension a (sudden) realisation, or even a sudden emergence of a realisation.
Thus regarded, this metaphorical meaning of 出来 is related to its other metaphorical
meanings.

8.8 过来 - guolai

过 means ”to pass” or ”to traverse” in a wide sense, but has in most cases to do with
movement pertaining to a horizontal plane. So far, we have talked about metaphors oriented
in the up/down direction, where the words indicating motion in an upward direction (上, 起)
and downward direction (下) constitute the part that is correspond with the metaphorical
“direction”. 过 does not in itself indicate a direction of motion, so 来/去 is the only part of the
compound that does. And in the meaning of going to from undesirable to desirable state and
vice versa when it comes to consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death, etc, 过来 and
过去 indicate metaphorical passing in opposite directions. When it comes to traversing
abstract obstacles, 过来 and 过去 are quite similar.

8.8.1 From undesirable to desirable state
Zhu(2005) says that the state in question often has to do with people’s life or reputation.
Example (#huifu) below has to do with reputation, but 过来 has to do with the verb 恢复

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(huifu, recover) and not so much with what is being recovered. That it has to do with people’s
life is often correct, but we would like to generalise a bit more and call it “consciousness” or
“conscious presence”, as it is used with waking up, coming to (out of a coma, etc.);
consciousness (and life) is “here” (at the location of the speaker), unconsciousness (and death)
is away from the speaker. As we have mentioned before, in English “conscious is up;
unconscious is down” in most cases, but there are also English expressions like “coming to”
and “come back to life”, “come out of a coma”, etc. that are not part of an up/down oriented
metaphor. 过来 is not limited to consciousness and health, as we can see from examples 114)
and 115); but indicates a passing of a metaphorical obstacle into a desirable state.

Life is here, death is away. Compare example 126), page 80. It is also interesting to compare
with example 7), page 23, where 回来 (huilai, return-come) is used to indicate that a person’s
life has been returned to the metaphorical location of the speaker.

The last two examples don’t have to do with health or consciousness, but otherwise have to do
with a transition to a desirable situation.

8.8.2 Successfully traversing an obstacle
It can be argued that this meaning of 过来 is the same as the above transition from
undesirable state to desirable state, as it is difficult to imagine such a transition without
traversing an obstacle. Oppositely, successfully traversing an obstacle will most likely result
in a desirable situation. In the following examples, the traversing of an obstacle is more clear
than the result being a desirable situation (although the result is a more desirable situation
than before, it is not really desirable per se), but the main reason for dividing the two is to
more clearly point out the similarities and differences between 过来 and 过去 (page 79).
Since 过来 and 过去 used like this have quite similar meanings, it seems the passing or
traversing is more important than in which direction it is being done. Thus, having this
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meaning, 过 is the more significant part of the compound. 来 and 去 can almost be regarded
as aspect markers.

A common word in Mandarin that is related to this meaning of 过来 (and the equivalent
meaning of 过去, page 81) is 难过 (nanguo, have a hard time / feel sad), which literally
means “difficult pass”, or “difficult to traverse”.

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8.8.3 Ability to accomplish (potential form)
In its potential form, 得/不 + 过来 indicate whether or not it is possible to successfully
traverse an obstacle and thus has no further metaphorical meaning than its non-potential form.
However, its potential form is included to illustrate the slight difference between 得/不 + 过
来 and 得/不 + 过去 (see page 82), as well as point out that on potential form 过来 can also
be used with stative verbs.

One can, for instance, say 忙不过来 (mang bu guolai, too busy to manage), but not *忙过来
(mang guolai). The latter does not fit into the above meaning(s) of 过来 and semantically
makes little sense (it would mean something like “manage to ‘busy’ onself through…”), but
on potential form it simply means “busy to the degree that one cannot successfully traverse
obstacle (= get by)”.

120) 老师 留 那么 多 作业
laoshi liu na me duo zuo ye
teacher leave like that much homework
一 晚上 做 得 过来 吗？
yi wan shang zuo de guola ma
one evening do <ability> pass-come Q
The teacher gave us so much homework, can we manage to do all of it in one
evening?
(Zhu, 2005)

过来 on potential form can indicate the ability to get through a “quantitative obstacle”; 过去
cannot be used this way56:
122) 书 太 多 了， 我 实在 看 不 过来。
shu tai duo le wo shizai kan bu guolai
book too many CRS I really look not pass-come
The books are too many, I really can’t manage to read them all.
(Gao, 2005)

Conversely, the same sentence with 过去 is incorrect: *书太多了，我实在看不过去 (Gao,
2005).

8.9 过去 - guoqu

过去 indicates passing in the opposite direction of 过来. As mentioned under 过来, they have
both similarities and differences. In the transition from “desirable state to undesirable state”
and vice versa, they work as opposites, while they have similar meanings when used to
indicate ability to get through a difficult situation, etc. For more information, compare with 过
来.

8.9.1 From desirable state to undesirable state
Most commonly used with verbs like 睡 (shui, sleep), 昏 (hun, faint), 晕 (yun, faint) 过去
forms the opposite of 过来, which indicates consciousness. The two compounds indicate
metaphorical passing in opposite directions and unconsciousness is away from the speaker.

Examples 123) - 125) above have to do with loss of consciousness. If we compare them to
example 111) in section 8.8.1, it becomes clear that “consciousness is here; unconsciousness
is away”. The slightly depressing example below has to do with a bit more permanent loss of
consciousness:

Upon comparison with examples 112) and 113), it also becomes evident that “life is here;
death is away”.

8.9.2 Traversing an obstacle
In much the same way as 过来, 过去 can also mean to get through a difficult situation, but
there seems to be a difference in that 过来 is often used if the difficult situation has already
been taken care of, while 过去 is often used about an imagined situation or a situation that has
not yet happened.

In lack of better sources, here are two examples taken from a transcript of the Chinese
translation of the American TV show “Friends”. They both have the same main verb.

The context is a conversation where one of the characters is discussing with a friend whether
or not to break up with her boyfriend (the breaking up has not taken place yet). In the next
example one of the characters asks another how he handled being left by his girlfriend.

128) 你 是 怎么 熬 过来 的？
ni shi zenme ao guolai de
you be how endure pass-come ASC
How did you get through it?

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8.9.3 Ability to accomplish (potential form)
While 不/得 + 过来 often has to do with ability to overcome a situation because of a physical
or otherwise external obstruction, 过去 on its potential form often has to do with some kind of
personal evaluation or moral assessment. Gao(2005) says that 过来 cannot express such
personal evaluation.

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“老秃山” is the name of a campaign in a war against American forces during the early 1950’s.

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也 听 不 进去 了。
ye ting bu jinqu le
at all listen not in-go CRS
(He) has no shame, he’s not able to take in a single (moral) principle.
(Gao, 2005)

8.11 出去 – chuqu

出去 is not commonly used metaphorically. In example 135) below it can be argued that 出去
indicates actual direction, while in example 136) the verb itself must also be regarded as a
metaphor since an apology is not something one can “pour out”.
135)
经 他 的 手 介绍 出去 的 稿子，
jing ta de shou jieshao chuqu de gaozi
undergo he GEN hand introduce out-go ASC manuscript
可以 说 是 不计其数 了。
keyi shuo shi bujiqishu le
may say be innumerable CRS
The manuscripts introduced by him (out to the world), can be said to be innumerable.
(Gao, 2005)

9.1.1 General underlying metaphors
Directional complements used as metaphors in Mandarin are representations of larger
underlying metaphors or cognitive concepts. Directional complements are not the only part of
the language that are instances of these underlying concept; on the contrary, as we have
discussed in preceding chapters, we find that underlying metaphors are represented by various
other grammatical groups, e.g. nouns and verbs, as well as directional verb complements. In
most cases these underlying metaphors are consistent in that one phenomenon represented by
a certain direction in most cases has the opposite phenomenon represented by the opposite
direction.

Let us have a look at the general concepts and their instances found in this study. Below is an
attempt at arranging them into three groups.

Time moves downward:
“Start is up; end/stop is down”.
“Continuation is down (and away)”.
“Past is up; future is down”.

More “physical” metaphors:
(most of these are metaphors pertaining to a plane and have to do with an abstract presence
being “here”):
“Emergence is out” (this is also part of “conscious is here”, as in 想出来).
“Consciousness is here; unconsciousness is away”.
“Consciousness is up” (as in 想起来 and 说不上来 [knowledge cannot come up]).
“Life here; death is away”.
“Surprise is out (towards speaker)”.
“Authority is up; inferiority is down” or “Having control or force is up; being subject to
control or force is down”.
“Restoring is up; storing is down” (also has to do with “consciousness is up”, as in 想起来).
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“Bringing together is up; separating is down”.

Active is up; passive is down:
“Light is up; dark is down”.
“More is up; less is down”.
“Warm is up; cold is down”.
“Loud is up; calm is down”.

There are several ways to group these metaphors that would make sense. For instance, we
could group them in “planar” and up/down oriented metaphors. The planar ones all suggest
presence, whether it is something physical or abstract that is coming into being or someone’s
consciousness returning to “here”. But regardless of how we arrange them, the important
thing is that we recognise that there is an underlying system that governs these spatial
metaphors.

9.1.2 Universality
We have found that spatial metaphors for abstract concepts, like time, can be found in most
languages. The Chinese language has a series of basic spatial metaphors that function much in
the same way as do spatial metaphors in the English language58; in most cases the same
phenomena are even represented by the same direction in both languages, e.g. “more is up;
less is down”, “warm is up; cold is down” and “light is up; dark is down”. This supports the
idea that these spatial metaphors and underlying concepts are based in how we perceive the
world around us, but more importantly it tells us that the same kind of underlying cognitive
metaphors are present in both languages. Moreover, the metaphors based on the underlying
concepts are, like metaphors in a Western context, not literally true: 下起雨来 (xia qi yu lai,
starts to rain), which literally means “fall up rain come” has nothing to do with rain moving
upwards, as 起 seems to indicate. This means that the apparent lack of metaphors in Chinese
poetry, as proposed by Stephen Owen and Pauline Yu, has nothing to do with a general lack
of metaphors (of which there are, in fact, many) in the Chinese language, but is most likely a
cultural preference in a poetic context.

58
The syntactical similarities and differences have been discussed in section 7.1.
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9.1.3 Grammatical function vs. semantic function
起来 and 下去 play a special role as 起来 can mean “to start ‘verbing’” with “all” action
verbs and 下去 can mean “to continue ‘verbing’” with “all” action verbs. In other words, their
grammatical role and their metaphorical semantic value are the same. Oppositely, there is no
directional verb complement that generally means “to stop ‘verbing’” or “discontinue
‘verbing’” with the same action verbs. 起来 alone represents “start is up”, regardless of the
preceding verb, while “end/stop is down” is represented by 停下来 where the meaning of
“stop” lies with the verb, not the complement. 下来’s grammatical role in this case is to
indicate completion of the action (the stopping), which is not a role unique to 下来. 下来 is a
preferred complement to “to stop” because it makes more sense semantically.

In the same way, after state verbs 起来 and 下来 can have the exact same grammatical
meaning; to indicate gradual transition from one state to another. Which one is used depends
entirely of the semantic meaning of the verb and the underlying metaphor, e.g. “light is up;
dark is down”, “loud is up; quiet is down”, etc.

9.1.4 About the compound constituents
Most of the underlying metaphorical concepts are oriented in the up/down direction,
represented by 上, 下 and 起 combined with 来 and 去. Planar metaphors are represented by
过 + 来/去 and in part 出来.

In up/down oriented metaphors, 上, 下 and 起 are naturally the most significant part of the
underlying metaphor and the role of 来 and 去 are often more vague. It seems like 来
indicates finality more often than does 去, but that is at this point an educated guess at best. In
some cases, e.g. 下去 (continue) and 下来 meaning “from past to present”, 下 indicates the
“direction” of time in Mandarin and since past is up, what is coming towards the speaker
comes from the past (which is up) and what is going away from the speaker and into the
future (which is down). A more clear exception from this vague role is the more particular
metaphor “authority is up; inferiority is down”, where 来 and 去 function exactly the way
they do when used non-metaphorically.

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When it comes to planar metaphors, 来 and 去 play a more important role. Combined with 过,
which does not in itself hold any directional value, 来 and 去 naturally play more prominent
roles, as in “life and consciousness is here; death and unconsciousness is away”, where they
indicate metaphorical motion in opposite directions. The exception is 过来 and 过去 used to
indicate a passing of an abstract obstacle, where the passing itself seems to be most important
and the direction of the passing seems less important.

The Chinese language is in many ways different from the English language, not to mention
other cultural and philosophical differences between East and West. It has even been claimed
that the Chinese language lacks metaphor in the Western sense of the word. It is therefore
interesting to discover that such a basic part of the language as spatial metaphors – and in
extention a way of thinking about basic concepts – can not only be found in both Chinese and
English (and others), but the various metaphors are in many cases the same. For a language
(and culture) that is often regarded as exotic and “mystical”, Chinese, at least in this regard, is
not as different as one might think.